Ok, a couple of things.

First, the LBJ comment itself. On its face, it's factually sound, sure. LBJ was the guy who finally got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed -- Since Kennedy had been shot several months before, it's an open question as to whether the young, inspiring Kennedy could've done it or not. (Or, for that matter, was even inclined to. Neither JFK nor Attorney General RFK were particularly strong leaders on civil rights during the Kennedy administration, although JFK was heading that way, and RFK later become an important voice for the movement, before his own untimely murder.)

But Clinton's characterization of civil rights is also top-heavy and highly misleading about the nature of the movement. The civil rights movement in the South has roots going back to WWII and before, but it really took off as a spontaneous movement for freedom all across the South -- notwithstanding Brown v. Board, Montgomery, and Little Rock -- beginning with the Greensboro sit-ins in 1960, when young, ordinary black teenagers began taking enormous personal risks to challenge Jim Crow. It was the sit-ins, and later the Freedom Riders -- actions taken by people just like you and me -- which really brought civil rights to the attention of the Kennedys. Over the next several years, African-Americans and white liberals continued the movement all across the South...in Birmingham, Selma, and elsewhere.

Dr. King, who had been instrumental in the Montgomery boycotts, emerged as a passionate, charismatic leader of the movement, and his words, at Birmingham, the March on Washington, and elsewhere, inspired white and black America to believe that racial injustice could no longer be tolerated in this nation. But he was not alone. Countless other leaders -- John L, Lewis, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Farmer -- also played important roles. And most important were the people, the thousands of individuals who risked everything -- including, sometimes, their lives -- for the cause of racial equality. (See John Dittmer, Local Color...or any other book about the civil rights movement, for that matter.) And why? They risked their lives because they hoped for something better -- They believed America could come together and be more than what it was.

As for LBJ, the fact he was a Southerner, and formerly the legislative master of the Senate, helped enormously in passing Civil Rights legislation. But so too did the television reports everyday of men, women, and children facing down racist cops and fire hoses in the name of simple justice. Go look at LBJ's Special Message to Congress on Youtube or elsewhere. "We Shall Overcome" -- Now, where do you suppose he got that from?

Second, and this is very important, Clyburn took issue at more than just the LBJ remark. He was also angry about the general "false hope" negativity perpetrated by the Clintons in NH. For example, the "Man from Hope"'s shameful and embarrassing "fairy tale" screed: "To call that dream [of an Obama presidency] a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us." Or all the talk of "false hope" in general: "It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal."

I'm with Clyburn. Clinton's historical analysis, like her shameful and disgusting rhetoric of "false hope," is extraordinarily dismaying. What happened to "It takes a village"? Along with the political lowballs of last week in NH -- the patently false abortion mailer and mandatory minimum drug hysteria flouted by the campaign -- it's the sheer brazenness of their shift in message that I can't forgive the Clintons for. I mean, am I misremembering things, or didn't they once believe in a place called Hope? Or was that just convenient spin, and hope is really just a "fairy tale" when it's working against the Clintons? Almost of their actions in New Hampshire suggest the latter.

And, since our identities have come to matter so much of late: I'm white. I'm male. I'm an Obama supporter. I grew up in Clyburn's district. I'm finishing a US History PhD at an Ivy League university (so I have some sense of what I'm talking about here), and I spent several years working for the Clinton rapid-response team (including during l'affaire Lewinsky, when columnists such as Sid Blumenthal and Joe Conason called us constantly.) So, I'm not and never have been a reflexive Clinton hater -- if anything, seeing this widespread, overstated notion that the MSM hates the Clintons encourages me to think we were pretty good at our jobs back then.

Aside from everything else that has been mentioned,

why would someone who voted Yes on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, in short, the Iraq war, implicitly compare herself to Lyndon Vietnam Johnson?

The commitment, bravery and sacrifice of the civil rights movement, as well as the contrbution of MLK, it's most articulate voice, is the ultimate source of the civil right bill, of course.

But in giving so much credit to LBJ, Clinton (and many posters here) are wrong in another way. The assassination of JFK was far more important than Johnson's skill in getting the civil rights bill passed. Johnson was a great arm-twister, for sure, but JFK's assassination created a passion in both the country and the congress to pass Kennedy's bill. Johnson was the administrator of that sentiment, not the moving force.

or a simple naivete of not having been old enough during the era that Clinton is talking about to recognize how far we have actually come. It is a shame that Anonymous 10:13 AM has to post as anonymous to avoid being piled on for stating the simple historical facts.

It is fine to speculate how MLK would have been as president compared to some white guy, but it would not have been possible for MLK or Hillary Clinton either one to have been elected at that time because of racial prejudice and because the role of women was enormously different.

In 1964 in the State of Texas, (from whence came LBJ) people paid poll tax to even be able to vote. Jim Crow was alive and well. Schools were still mostly segregated below high school level. Women were not allowed to sit on juries. Nor did black men sit on juries. Black men were routinely called "boy."

Nationwide the civil rights movement was changing things, but it is precisely because those things needed changing that MLK could never have been president at that time. Maybe you have to have lived in that time to understand how pervasive racial prejudice really was.

Lyndon Johnson spent his political capital to pass the Civil Rights Act, both because he truly believed it was just and because he wanted something for his legacy, and he should be given credit where credit is due. Sadly, he squandered much of his legacy pursuing the incredibly stupid and unjust Vietnam War. Sometimes good people do bad things. Sometimes bad people do good things.

Looking at the world as if it is a game of heros and villians is childish.